Pictured in Horacio Fernandez, ed., The Latin American Photobook.
"The glorious face is composed of splendour and decadence, of pathos; glory approaching the pathetic. These are two constant features in the portraits in [Omar's book]...To classify these faces as divine or devilish is merely a question of one's point of view"--from Ivana Bentes' essay

Brazilian artist Arthur Omar was trained as an anthropologist and is well-known as a poet and experimental filmmaker. The theme of Antropologia Da Face Gloriosa (Anthropology of the Glorious Face) is nothing less than 'ecstasy'. During carnival times, Omar obsessively made close-ups of subjects in the throes of delirium, frenzy and elation, capturing a compendium of Brazilian faces experiencing some form of personal inspiration or transcendence. Equal parts ethnographic investigation and unhinged expressionism, Omar's book would seem to enact philosopher Emmanual Levinas' dictum that 'The face is signification without context'. HIGHLY recommended!